Embodiments relate generally to a communication system for medical applications and monitoring of equipment used in the care of monitored patients. More particularly, embodiments use a telecommunications network to facilitate the transfer of data from patient monitoring equipment into a computer system that evaluates the monitored data for medical assessment, tracking of progress of treatment, and other applications for outpatients treated from residences and residential care facilities. As used herein, a residential care facility is a facility that is equipped to provide basic housing and monitoring of residents but is not equipped to provide expert medical care. By way of illustration and not as a limitation, a residence may include a home, an apartment, an incarceration facility, a dormitory, and a condominium. A residential care facility may include a retirement home, a nursing home, and an assisted living facility.
Advances in communications, video displays, monitoring devices and computers have made it possible to remotely monitor hundreds of monitored patients from a central command center. Monitoring of patients in a hospitalized environment has become a reality. U.S. Pat. No. 6,804,656, which is incorporated by reference, describes systems and methods for providing continuous, expert network critical care services from a remote location(s) to patients located in a healthcare facility.
Various embodiments comprise a communication network for automated monitoring of patients treated in a residence or a residential care facility capable of using diverse data sources to assess the condition of such patients according to patient-specific rules. Such a network supports computerized diagnostic tools to aid caregivers in treating such patients remotely. Such a network further comprises the ability to flexibly and individually establish and/or revise alerts for patients from a central location based on individualized patient parameters and to utilize computer based algorithms to a communications network optimized for intervening appropriately.
An embodiment uses a telecommunications network to facilitate the assessment of patients receiving care in an outpatient care location (OPCL). As used herein, an outpatient care location includes residences and residential care facilities. As used herein, a residential care facility is a facility that is equipped to provide basic housing and monitoring of residents. By way of illustration and not as a limitation, a residence may include a home, an apartment, an incarceration facility, a dormitory, and a condominium. A residential care facility may include a retirement home, a nursing home, and an assisted living facility.
By way of illustration and not as a limitation, an “OPCL monitored patient” may be a patient who has an illness, an injury, or a condition that requires or would benefit from monitoring from an outpatient care location.
Patient monitoring equipment acquires monitored data elements from a patient monitoring station and transmits the monitoring data over a network to a remote command center. By way of illustration and not as a limitation, the monitoring data may be transmitted over a fiber network, a cable network, or a wireless network. Additionally, the network connection may be established over a telephone line for a period time during which data is being transferred after which the network connection may be terminated, as for example, in a dial-up session. Monitoring data comprises physiological data elements, laboratory values, symptomatology data, medication compliance data, video data elements, and audio data elements. The remote command center receives the monitoring data from all patient monitoring equipment. As used herein, the term “monitoring equipment” at least encompasses monitoring devices that reside at a bedside, monitoring devices that are worn by a patient, monitoring devices that are built into patient supporting devices (e.g., gurneys, beds, chairs, wheelchairs), monitoring devices that embedded in structures of the residential care facility (e.g., wall, floors, counters, toilets, sinks), monitoring devices that used by patients (e.g., blood pressure monitors, blood sugar monitors, lung function measurement devices (e.g., spirometers, peak flow meters), and devices the determine that the correct medications are being administered at the correct time
The remote command center also accesses other data relating to the condition of a patient. By way of illustration and not as limitation, the remote command center has access to patient identifying information (name, address, marital status, age, gender, ethnicity, next of kin). A patient record datastore further comprises other data relating to the condition of a patient, for example, data relating to personal information about the patient (age, gender, ethnicity), medical history (illnesses, injuries, surgeries, allergies, medications), admissions information (symptoms, physiological data, time of admission, observations of admitting caregiver), treatment, lab data such as data that may be taken from a patient and later evaluated (such as blood work, urinalysis and other such laboratory derived information), test reports (radiology reports and microbiology reports for example), physician's notes, a patient's diagnosis, prescriptions, history, condition, laboratory results and other health-relevant data (collectively “patient data”). The data stored in the patient record datastore relevant to the patient condition, that is, the monitored data and the patient data, are collectively referred to herein as “assessment data” And may be functionally located anywhere so long as its functionality is readily available to the remote command center to allow processing of the assessment data as noted below.